Atlanta Tearing Down All Public Housing. Will It Ever Happen In DC?

[Anonymous]

yeah, nobody whines when the government is providing welfare checks to farmers and the agriculture community. Nor do these people whine when government provides handouts to big banks, insurance companies and auto manufacturers. It is always the least amongst us that is villified and considered lazy, shiftless or worthless. And as for ingrained entitlements, I never met more people in college, the work place or on this anonymous board who felt more entitled to any and everything, simply because they could.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Children learn their values and ethics from their parents. When you have generations of families that have an ingrained sense of entitlement and welfare mentality, the 5 year old is most likely going to pick this up from their parents and community and settle for a lifestyle of handouts and taxpayer money, instead of trying to succeed and achieve “something” in this world. Forcing the parents to realize that they have obligations and that they can’t expect us to take care of them forever is the first step. Why must we constantly lower expectations for people? Why are we so quick to give them a handout and not expect some accountability for the money they are receiving from hard working individuals?

Justice Sotomayor grew up in a public housing project. I guess her parents-- who worked-- modeled laziness and hopelessness to her, which is why she never got anywhere in life.

I wonder whether some people realize that public housing projects often house working poor people whose efforts can never get them a sufficient income to live somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Yep! I also know a couple of guys currently in college (first generation -- parents don't even have high school degrees) whose families live in housing projects and I tutor in a program with kids from the projects hoping to get to college. Gee, for lazy people who are just looking for handouts, they are working awfully hard!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlwdklpqEbVJvjLUFn9v7Go18cWwD99N0LB05

I think this is a good idea. End the cycle of poverty. Let people understand that the only way to rise up the socio-economic ladder is to do it themselves.

You completely missed the point of the article and the trend. Atlanta isn't eliminating subsidized housing. It is eliminating large housing projects, because they group together too many poor people in one place, and it encourages crime.

Instead, they are going to a model where individuals who are poor live in subsidized units within the larger community that includes unsubsidized housing. This means that there is less of a center for criminal activity. It makes it harder to suck poorer youth into crime, eliminates a big center for drug dealing, and it disperses criminals so they aren't running roughshod over an entire set of buildings. It does not mean that the government of Atlanta is letting the poor fend for themselves any more than they are now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please move to Atlanta.

Expand, please.

Now.

Thanks-I guess that's the best you can come up with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yeah, nobody whines when the government is providing welfare checks to farmers and the agriculture community. Nor do these people whine when government provides handouts to big banks, insurance companies and auto manufacturers. It is always the least amongst us that is villified and considered lazy, shiftless or worthless. And as for ingrained entitlements, I never met more people in college, the work place or on this anonymous board who felt more entitled to any and everything, simply because they could.

Are you kidding? Just about everyone I know was completely disgusted with the bank bailout and the stimulus package.

[Anonymous]

It's OK to feel entitled if you're rich-however, if you are poor, well it's just all wrong to be poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlwdklpqEbVJvjLUFn9v7Go18cWwD99N0LB05

I think this is a good idea. End the cycle of poverty. Let people understand that the only way to rise up the socio-economic ladder is to do it themselves.

You completely missed the point of the article and the trend. Atlanta isn't eliminating subsidized housing. It is eliminating large housing projects, because they group together too many poor people in one place, and it encourages crime.

Instead, they are going to a model where individuals who are poor live in subsidized units within the larger community that includes unsubsidized housing. This means that there is less of a center for criminal activity. It makes it harder to suck poorer youth into crime, eliminates a big center for drug dealing, and it disperses criminals so they aren't running roughshod over an entire set of buildings. It does not mean that the government of Atlanta is letting the poor fend for themselves any more than they are now.

And also (maybe this will make OP happy) it creates a community with economic diversity so that there are a variety of role models in the community (as the PP noted making it harder to suck poor kids into crime) and as well poor kids can make some money doing chores for people who actually have money to pay them. Not that OP apparently cares. I think she'd like to have everyone thrown into debtor's prison or publicly flogged.

And to answer her question -- this has already happened in DC, e.g., Ellen Wilson Place in Capitol Hill, the remaking of the Carrollsburgs apartments in the Near Southeast (by the Navy Yard), among others. As well, there are a number of public housing complexes which are slated to be replaced with mixed income housing (e.g., Barry Farms) but I don't know how soon this will happen given the problems the District is facing financially.

I've also had deeply mixed feelings about it. Generally the residents of the projects are told they will be able to move back if they qualify but there are many fewer units and it's hard to qualify. Some critics have argued that this is an attempt to exile the poor from the communities they've lived in for years. On the other hand, mixed income housing is much sounder social policy and it's better not to warehouse the poor in large complexes which segregate them from the rest of the community. The Urban Institute has done follow up studies on residents moved out because their housing complexes have been replaced (Hope VI projects). They found that generally people who did not move to another public housing project did better but that people who ended up in another project did worse. (OP, that doesn't mean, as this pp noted, that these people suddenly worked harder. It means that they got other supports such as housing vouchers and most likely what improved is that they weren't segregated in large poor populations. I'm guessing they worked just as hard as they've always worked.)

But, living as I do in a gentrifying neighborhood with a public housing project supposedly slated for replacement, I wonder if some of the kids wouldn't be better off staying right where they are. The schools are getting better because the middle class is getting involved. There are more volunteer tutors from the neighborhood in the tutoring program where I volunteer. There are more service jobs in the community. Some local folks also found construction work in the new condos being built. But Urban didn't test for that. At any rate, I think most of us will agree that large scale warehousing and segregation of the poor has not been good housing policy -- whether we blame the poor for their condition or not.

[Anonymous]

This also has been done in Chicago -- I believe with mixed results, though I don't know the particulars. They got rid of some of the most notorious public housing projects and moved the residents to single-family houses in other neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

This is far from new.

We did the same thing with Pruitt Igoe in St. Louis. It was built in the 50's as a new approach to the war on poverty. It failed because the concrete jungle it created just put the many decent poor people in harm's way because they were living in the midst of crime, drugs, and gangs. In the end, the decent people all moved to low-rise, low density public housing nearby. My mom grew up in an adjacent neighborhood, and the priest in her parish often talked about how the living conditions created by the design itself created a breeding ground for chaos and destruction. He said things got much better when Pruitt Igoe was taken down, which demonstrates that the building was more to blame than the people, who stayed in the neighborhood but who lived much better afterward.

The destruction of Pruitt Igoe was considered symbolic of the failed housing project experiment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt-Igoe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is far from new.

We did the same thing with Pruitt Igoe in St. Louis. It was built in the 50's as a new approach to the war on poverty. It failed because the concrete jungle it created just put the many decent poor people in harm's way because they were living in the midst of crime, drugs, and gangs. In the end, the decent people all moved to low-rise, low density public housing nearby. My mom grew up in an adjacent neighborhood, and the priest in her parish often talked about how the living conditions created by the design itself created a breeding ground for chaos and destruction. He said things got much better when Pruitt Igoe was taken down, which demonstrates that the building was more to blame than the people, who stayed in the neighborhood but who lived much better afterward.

The destruction of Pruitt Igoe was considered symbolic of the failed housing project experiment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt-Igoe

Sounds a bit like Sursum Corda, too.

[Anonymous]

What is the definition of 'decent people'?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the definition of 'decent people'?

Non violent, non criminal, honest, hardworking people????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do hope people are helped by this. I have lived in mixed tenant buildings and I think that it's not only a chance to live away from the crime and violence but it's a lifestyle and outlook that has to change in order to get out of poverty.

I really don't think public housing if crime free, most likely just the opposite. I do not believe in public housing, get a tent, freeze your ass off and realize you may have to find a job to live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I really don't think public housing if crime free, most likely just the opposite. I do not believe in public housing, get a tent, freeze your ass off and realize you may have to find a job to live.

Careful. Karma's a bitch. If you find yourself in a tent somewhere you may find it hard to get a job without a fixed address. As teh folks holding two or three jobs in public housing.